Wednesday, 6 August 2014

6th August - Saga Vikings vs Anglo Saxons 4th Aug - AAR

So after finishing my Vikings off a few weeks ago I finally managed to organize a game of Saga against Toby with his recently finished Anglo Saxons. Both of us had picked up our respective four point starter boxes and wanted to get a game in before investing anything more in (for me my box included boxes of Anglo Danish for The Wife, Norse Gael for The Eldest, Irish for The Youngest [almost fully painted and game ready now] and all four rule books and faction dice for all). As this was our first game we decided to just play a simple kill the enemy warlord scenario. As stated above we had the starter box sets for our factions.

My force consisted of my warlord Adelbrand, two points of hirdmen (hearthguard) and two points of bondi (warrior). The hearthguard points consist of four models per point which I split into two units of four one of which I made beserkers as per the viking special rule. The warrior points are eight models a point and I left these as eight man units. Units must be between four to twelve men in size and of the same type. Toby took his warlord, one point of ealdormen (heathguard), two points of thegns (warriors) and one point of ceorls (levies). The levies are twelve models per point and work well with his factions abilities, a lot of which are dependent or gain bonuses for units of ten models or more. With this in mind he ran the four ealdormen, twelve levies and two units of warriors one of eleven models and one of five.

Our starting formations gave myself six dice for my order pool and gave Toby five dice (Two dice for the warlord, one dice per hearthguard or warrior unit, no dice for levies). These dice are then allocated to the order boards and used during your turn (or your opponents for reactives) to activate your units or to use racial abilities.

Adelbrand moved his men forward further inland. Today he may have only bought a handful but returning with a rich haul would allow him to bring more boats and more men, he just needed to find a rich town to plunder. Eric the Swift was suddenly back beside him. "The Saxons have got wind of us, they're mustered to meet just just between the hills up ahead". Sure enough the locals could be seen mustered just ahead on the edge of view. "Ready your weapons men, tonight we dine in their halls, or those of Vahalla!!"

Initial deployment, Vikings on the bottom edge Anglo Saxons on the top

I won the roll for initiative and began the staggered deployment and took the first turn. The scenario was for six turns a piece ending with a victory point total or killing the enemy warlord for an outright victory. I rolled well on my first turn and managed to move everyone up towards my opponent. Toby didn't do as well with his rolls but moved the bulk of his force towards me.

Berserkers destroying ealdormen

Bererkers going down in a pool of ceorl blood

Turn two saw the first combat of the game with my beserkers coming to grips with his ealdormen and tearing them to shreds (my dice pool of twenty with the use of a few abilities, against his of eight). Unfortunately for Toby even with my already low and then lowered armour value I was able to successful defend against two of his four hits compared to his managing to save against one of my ten hits. First blood to the Vikings. Apart from that I now had the center tile firmly under control and had my far left bondi unit up on the hill ready to smash into his larger thegn formation to remove any bonuses he was potentially going to get. His turn saw the ceorls charge into the remnants of the berserkers taking them out but losing five of their number breaking one of his large units and eliminating the need to worry about his Saxon Kingdom ability which would have allowed them to fight as a warrior unit. All in all it was a happy trade off for me.

Bondi break the large thegn unit but at a bloody cost

The next turn saw my bondi on the left flank charging into Toby's larger thegn unit and thanks to my Thor ability fighting two rounds of combat before disengaging. This saw my unit reduced to three from eight but I managed to pull down six of his troops breaking his final large unit. My other bondi hit his ceorls and reduced them to three men at the cost of one. His retaliatory turn saw my tattered bondi unit finished off and his warlord burst forth killing three of my other bondi forcing them well back but leaving him out in the open.....

Final clash of the game

Thus began my fifth turn and the final for the game. A rather nice activation roll saw my hirdmen advancing on his warlord along with my own warlord. Njord removed everyone's fatigue then Determination combined with We Obey and Side by Side (all warlord special rules) allowed me to move my warlord and hirdmen into combat. Frigg removed my warlords fatigue and we both spent the remaining fatigue adjusting Toby's warlords armour leaving it where it began. The resulting combat saw my hirdmen saving against both of his two strikes but his warlord going pierced over and over by many blades.

Great game and I'll be purchasing some more options for my force soon as will I believe Toby. A thank you to my Uncle again for the loan of terrain it's come in handy many times and to my Brother for getting me interested in the game after his Welsh ebay purchase, we'll have to get a game in soon